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Alan Wakeman
Alan Wakeman (born 13 October 1947) is an English saxophonist who was a member of Soft Machine during 1976, appearing on the album '' Softs''. He is a cousin of the keyboard player Rick Wakeman. Career Wakeman started on the clarinet at age 14 and, while at school, played in a band with cousin Rick on piano. He switched to the alto saxophone at 16, then subsequently to the tenor saxophone; he also plays soprano saxophone. He joined the Paul Lytton Quartet in 1968 and had his own trio in 1970 (with Harry Miller on bass). He subsequently worked with Graham Collier (including the albums ''Songs for My Father'' and ''The Day of the Dead''), Johnny Dankworth and Mike Westbrook (including playing saxophone and clarinet on the 1975 album ''Citadel/Room 315'' and 1976's ''Love/Dream and Variations''). He was also an original member of Alan Gowen's band Gilgamesh in 1972–3 but left before Gilgamesh's first album. He left Soft Machine in 1976 to join David Essex's band, havin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It is bordered by Shepherd's Bush to the north, Kensington to the east, Chiswick to the west, and Fulham to the south, with which it forms part of the north bank of the River Thames. The area is one of west London's main commercial and employment centres, and has for some decades been a major centre of London's Polish community. It is a major transport hub for west London, with two London Underground stations and a bus station at Hammersmith Broadway. Toponymy Hammersmith may mean "(Place with) a hammer smithy or forge", although, in 1839, Thomas Faulkner proposed that the name derived from two 'Saxon' words: the initial ''Ham'' from ham and the remainder from hythe, alluding to Hammersmith's riverside location. In 1922, Gover pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Essex
David Essex (born David Albert Cook; 23 July 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. Since the 1970s, he has attained 19 Top 40 singles in the UK (including two number ones) and 16 Top 40 albums. Internationally, Essex had the most success with his 1973 single "Rock On". He has also had an extensive career as an actor. Life and career Early life Essex was born in Plaistow, Essex (now a neighbourhood in the London Borough of Newham, included within Greater London on 23rd July 1947).Sarah Fielding. "From Rags to 'Rock On': How David Essex Became a Star." ''Music Scene.'December 1973.p. 18. His father, Albert, was an East End docker and his mother, Olive (née Kemp), was a self-taught pianist and an Irish Traveller. His grandfather, Thomas Kemp, was nicknamed "Philimore", which was the anglicised version of "Philly Mor" – being Irish for "Big Philly". Essex was two years old when his parents moved out of the overcrowded home the family was sharing with relatives, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the largest online database of electronic music, the site now includes releases in all genres on all formats. After the database was opened to contributions from the public, rock music began to become the most prevalent genre listed. , Discogs contains over 15.7 million releases, by over 8.3 million artists, across over 1.9 million labels, contributed from over 644,000 contributor user accounts – with these figures constantly growing as users continually add previously unlisted releases to the site over time. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc. and located in Portland, Oregon, United States. History The discogs.com domain name was registered in August 2000, and Discogs itself ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stan Tracey
Stanley William Tracey (30 December 1926 – 6 December 2013) was a British jazz pianist and composer, whose most important influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Tracey's best known recording is the 1965 album ''Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood"'', which is based on the BBC radio drama ''Under Milk Wood'', by Dylan Thomas. Early career The Second World War meant that Tracey had a disrupted formal education, and he became a professional musician at the age of sixteen as a member of an ENSA touring group playing the accordion, his first instrument. He joined Ralph Reader, Ralph Reader's Gang Shows at the age of nineteen, while in the Royal Air Force, RAF and formed a brief acquaintance with the comedian Tony Hancock. Later, in the early 1950s, he worked in groups on the transatlantic ocean liner, liners ''RMS Queen Mary, Queen Mary'' and ''Caronia'' and toured the UK in 1951 with Cab Calloway. By the mid-1950s, he had also taken up the vibrapho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swans Way (band)
Swans Way were a three-piece English pop group. In addition to the future Scarlet Fantastic duo of Maggie De Monde (vocals and percussion) and Rick P. Jones (double bass), Swans Way featured the vocals of Robert Shaw. Formed in Birmingham in 1982, Swans Way presented a mixture of musical influences, from jazz to classical and pop to disco. Their first single, "Theme from the Balcony" issued in 1982, was not a chart hit, but their second, "Soul Train", reached number 20 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1984. They also released further singles, with varying success. "The Anchor", in March 1984, did not chart, whilst "Illuminations" made number 57 in May 1984, and their third and final hit, "When The Wild Calls", peaked outside the Top 75 (the officially-published chart listing) at number 80. The group recorded an album, ''The Fugitive Kind'', which made number 88 on the UK Albums Chart in November 1984. The album was issued on CD, but only about 100 copies were pressed. It w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Rendell
Donald Percy Rendell (4 March 1926 – 20 October 2015) was an English jazz musician and arranger. Mainly active as a tenor saxophonist, he also played soprano saxophone, flute, and clarinet. Career Rendell was born in Plymouth, England, and raised in London where he attended the City of London School, to which he gained a choral half-scholarship. The school was evacuated during the Second World War to Marlborough College, where Rendell heard Jazz for the first time. His father, Percy, was the musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company; his mother Vera (née Trewin) was also a musician. His father died when Rendell was 16. Rendell had begun to play the piano aged five, but switched to saxophone in his teens. While he began his working life in the Southgate branch of Barclay's Bank, he soon left to become a professional musician. He began his career on alto saxophone but changed to tenor saxophone in 1943. During the rest of the 1940s, he was in the bands of George ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Youth Jazz Orchestra
The National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NYJO) is a British jazz orchestra founded in 1965 by Bill Ashton. In 2010. Mark Armstrong took over as Music Director of the flagship performing band, and Artistic Director of the organisation; Bill Ashton became Life President, and Nigel Tully became Executive Chair. Based in Westminster, London, England, NYJO started life as the London Schools' Jazz Orchestra, and evolved into becoming the national orchestra. Its aims are to provide an opportunity for gifted young musicians from around the UK to perform big band jazz in major concert halls, theatres, and on radio and television, and to make recordings, commission new works from British composers and arrangers, and to introduce a love of jazz to as wide an audience as possible, but especially to schoolchildren. The performing band, NYJO, is selected by audition and invitation, and has a maximum age of 25. It performs around 40 gigs a year across the UK, the vast majority involving additional in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Jazz Composers Orchestra
Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr, and later taught there. Guy came to the fore as an improvising bassist as a member of a trio with pianist Howard Riley and drummer Tony Oxley (Witherden, 1969). He also became an occasional member of John Stevens' ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In the early 1970s, he was a member of the influential free improvisation group Iskra 1903 with Derek Bailey and trombonist Paul Rutherford (a project revived in the late 1970s, with violinist Philipp Wachsmann replacing Bailey). He also formed a long-standing partnership with saxophonist Evan Parker, which led to a trio with drummer Paul Lytton which became one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Guy
Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr, and later taught there. Guy came to the fore as an improvising bassist as a member of a trio with pianist Howard Riley and drummer Tony Oxley (Witherden, 1969). He also became an occasional member of John Stevens' ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In the early 1970s, he was a member of the influential free improvisation group Iskra 1903 with Derek Bailey and trombonist Paul Rutherford (a project revived in the late 1970s, with violinist Philipp Wachsmann replacing Bailey). He also formed a long-standing partnership with saxophonist Evan Parker, which led to a trio with drummer Paul Lytton which became one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Girls At Our Best!
Girls at Our Best! were an English post-punk band, founded in Leeds, England in 1979 under the name The Butterflies. They had several UK Independent Singles Chart hits during their three-year existence. History The group initially consisted of vocalist Judy "Jo" Evans, guitarist James "Jez" Alan, bassist Gerard "Terry" Swift and drummer Chris Oldroyd.Strong, Martin C. (2003) "Girls at Our Best", in ''The Great Indie Discography'', Canongate, They took their new name from a line in their track "Warm Girls", released as the B-side to their self-financed 1980 debut single "Getting Nowhere Fast". The single, released in April 1980 on their own Record Records, reached No. 9 on the UK Indie Chart. Oldroyd departed to join Music for Pleasure, and was replaced by Paul SimonPaul Simon biography notes at Ajanta Music (former ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dankworth
Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), also known as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and writer of film scores. With his wife, jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, he was a music educator and also her music director. Biography Early years Born in Woodford, Essex, he grew up, within a family of musicians, in Hollywood Way, Highams Park, a suburb of Chingford, and attended Selwyn Boys' (Junior) School in Highams Park and later Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow. He had violin and piano lessons before settling eventually on the clarinet at the age of 16, after hearing a record of the Benny Goodman Quartet. Soon afterwards, inspired by Charlie Parker, he learned to play the alto saxophone. He began his career on the British jazz scene after studying at London's Royal Academy of Music (where his jazz interests were frowned upon) and then national service in the Royal Air Force, during which he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Beckett
Harold Winston "Harry" Beckett (30 May 1935 – 22 July 2010) was a British trumpeter and flugelhorn player of Barbadian origin. Biography Born in Bridgetown, Saint Michael, Barbados, Harry Beckett learned to play music in a Salvation Army band. A resident in the UK from 1954, he had an international reputation. He played with Charles Mingus in the 1962 film '' All Night Long''. In the 1960s, he worked and recorded within the band of bass player and composer Graham Collier, retaining the connection over a 16-year period. Beginning in 1970, Beckett led groups of his own, recording for Philips, RCA and Ogun Records among other labels. Beckett was a key figure of important groups in the British free jazz/improvised music scene, including Ian Carr's Nucleus, the Brotherhood of Breath and The Dedication Orchestra, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, London Improvisers Orchestra, John Surman's Octet, Django Bates, Ronnie Scott's Quintet, Kathy Stobart, Charlie Watts, Stan Tracey's B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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